It’s that time of the year when Mumbaikars brace for ‘Sir, Diwali’

Every year, Vitthal Sawant, secretary of the dabbawala association, spends the week before Diwali putting out verbal fireworks. That’s when many unsuspecting clients call on his office number to complain about the footnote that “humbly requests” them to pay a surplus of a month’s salary in advance. Why is their so-far-mutely-efficient dabbawala lashing out at them like an entitled extortionist, they typically ask 49-year-old Sawant who, with the calm of a hostage crisis negotiator, must pretend to be on their side. The charade ends with Sawant shrinking the expected festival bonus from say Rs 1000 to Rs 500 and blaming their dabbawala’s sudden tantrum on a trusty old Mumbai ruse: the heat.
This annual drama is a side effect of the social tax called ‘baksheesh’ that soaks Mumbai in greed, guilt and shame every Diwali. Once a self-determined sum doled out in goodwill, the tradition has now devolved into a subliminal contract replete with unspoken caveats such as a month’s paid leave for the home-bound maid and guilt-inducing housing society registers that shame you for handing two less smiling Mahatmas to the sweeper than the neighbouring Nayyars. Typically, money starts saturating the festive air when an assortment of leathery palms--postman, milkman, paperwallah, driver, maid, gardener, car cleaner, gas cylinder delivery man, grocery shop boy, random politician show up at your door and go back with floral envelopes that emanate from the mere utterance of Mumbai’s homegrown euphemism for baksheesh: “Sir, Diwali”.

“I don’t like asking for Diwali baksheesh anymore,” says veteran postwoman Manisha Sale, 56 who hauls letters to 33 buildings in Kala Ghoda office. “I earn well now,” she explains. Even so, last week, when a longtime client relocated her office to BKC, she made sure to leave Sale a sum of Rs 500 and the postwoman who suspects her age might also be eliciting lucrative sympathy, was touched.

In the skyscraper-less Bombay of yore, MTNL linesmen and civic gutter cleaners too were among beneficiaries but rabid redevelopment has meant that “watchmen now dissuade anyone who comes for baksheesh unless they are regulars like postmen,” says veteran Matunga resident K A Viswanathan. Twenty years ago, a survey of 500 Mumbaikars by a private market research agency indicated that Rs 17 to Rs 20 crore had changed hands during that festive season.

While baksheesh did get a legal halo ten years ago when a Bombay High Court bench upheld payments to the tune of Rs 2.73 lakh made by a Jalna sugar factory to labourers in baksheesh as a valid business expense that could be shown as such in Income Tax returns--its prospect still elicits the same cageyness in Mumbai as talk of enforcing service charge in restaurants. “It’s very unfortunate that, as Indians, we are not generous tippers,” says Ritu Gorai, of online mommy network Journey About Mast Moms, who spends Rs 15000 on baksheesh for the service staff in addition to giving her maid and cook a combined sum of Rs 7000 as bonus. “Baksheesh is a way of showing acknowledgement and respect to the otherwise taken-for-granted workforce," says Gorai, who--besides cash--has also surprised gardeners and sweepers with gifts such as movie ticket vouchers.

For those from other cities, though, determining the moral mathematics of this festival etiquette can be tricky. Anand Talari, who grew up in a Delhi government colony where neighbours grudgingly handed a laddoo instead of cash as Diwali baksheesh has developed an inner algorithm over time. “If the person has done a decent job over the year, maintained rapport then I give him some money,” says Andheri-based Talari.

However, guilt can extract its share of financial butter. For instance, every time Debparna Banerjee, owner of a PR firm cannot boast a fixed income or give her maids half a month’s salary as bonus, she finds her conscience compensating two months later. But living up to this does become “a pain in a bad month,” she confesses.

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